Free Republic

My expectations last night were 20-25 House seats and plus one or two in the Senate. As we can all see this morning it’s looking like maybe 10 House seats and a chance of gaining one in the Senate. It’s also possible the GOP could lose GA and NV and wind up with one less seat than they had previously. For the sake of argument, let’s assume a narrow majority in the House and the Senate remains 50-50 with VP Harris breaking ties. If that’s where things land is there any silver lining?In the short term it’s definitely a mixed...

Britain’s Pearson (PSON.L) has seen an “explosion” in demand for online learning, with traffic across its platforms quadrupling as millions of children start to adapt to home schooling during the coronavirus pandemic, its chief executive said. Pearson, a leading global education company, has made some programs available for free and expanded others to help teachers, parents and students fill the gap caused by school and college closures that have followed the spread of coronavirus from China to other parts of Asia, Europe to North America. The company has mobilized resources to train more teachers to deliver lessons online and provide...

In announcing the new warning, Iranian state TV journalist Dr. Afruz Eslami warned that if people fail to follow any guidance, it could collapse Iran's already-strained medical system. If the "medical facilities are not sufficient, there will be 4 million cases, and 3.5 million people will die," she said. . . Late Monday night, angry crowds stormed the courtyards of the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the Fatima Masumeh shrine in Qom. Many people visit the shrine in Qom 24 hours a day, seven days a week, touching and kissing the shrine.

The fires that started sweeping across the state earlier this month are the most destructive in California’s history. The fires have burned 245,000 acres, destroyed 7,700 structures and killed 42 people, according to Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting department. The fires have been particularly bad in Sonoma County, where 30 pot farms and three pot manufacturers lost everything to the blazes, according to the web site of the Sonoma County Growers Alliance. None of those businesses are insured, according to the alliance. Allen said he managed to confirm that 25 farms were destroyed in Sonoma County, which are included in...

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Far from being depleted by its recent sweep into Iraq, the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is pressing deeper into Syria, regaining territory it had lost to the mainstream Syrian insurgents just as the Syrian Army has come within five miles of encircling the insurgent-held section of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. The dual advance is on the verge of dealing a potentially fatal blow to the mainstream insurgents, leaving them besieged in the city while ISIS, a group deemed too extreme even by Al Qaeda, faces the Syrian government across a crucial front line at...

MK Ahmad Tibi (Raam Taal) berated Arab citizens of Israel Saturday for their relatively low turnout in the elections and blamed them for the loss of his party's fifth seat in the final vote count. Early counting gave the party five seats and would have left MK Taleb a-Sana in the parliament. However, upon completion of the counting of the "double envelope" votes, which are mostly those of soldiers, it turned out that Raam-Taal would only have four MKs. The seat they "lost" went to Bayit Yehudi and allowed Shuli Muallem, widow of Lt. Col. Moshe Muallem, a resident of...

A year ago, Primitivo Morales had a home in the suburbs, two children in college and two successful businesses on E. Lake Street in Minneapolis. But the economic downturn, combined with cranked-up immigration enforcement, has driven customers away and crushed his personal finances. After 25 years in the United States, he now is reluctantly making plans to return to Mexico. Morales, 45, is part of a trend unfolding across the state and the nation. Latinos in the prime of their work life are returning home because their dreams have collapsed along with the economy. The numbers are still relatively small,...

Six weeks before Kyle Paxman’s scheduled wedding, a stranger walked into her office with e-mail messages and other evidence that Ms. Paxman’s fiancé was cheating on her — with the stranger’s girlfriend. “The dress had arrived, the flowers were done, the menus were chosen,” said Ms. Paxman, manager of two food and beverage outlets at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. “One hundred and eighty guests had tickets from all over the country and the Virgin Islands to come and make a weekend of my wedding.” But rather than cancel the reception, planned for this Saturday in Vermont,...

Press Release Source: The Baltimore Sun Sun Readership Up as Circulation Declines Slow Monday May 8, 5:58 pm ET Sun Issues Correction to ABC FAS-Fax Release BALTIMORE, May 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Even as the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX release showed The Sun's recent circulation declines slowing, new research shows the paper's readership actually growing. The March ABC Publisher's Statement shows Sun overall daily (Monday - Friday average) circulation down about 3% and Sunday down about 6.6%, largely reflecting the newspaper's continued reduction of bulk or third-party sponsored distribution. (A mistake in ABC's original release this morning erroneously reported...

<p>Much has been made in the media about the sweep of California statewide offices by Democrats, the first time that had happened in 120-odd years.</p> <p>It's certainly noteworthy, at least as a historic milestone, and it does underscore the decline of the Republicans in a state whose major statewide elections they once dominated. It stands in contrast, too, to the wins by White House-led Republicans in congressional, senatorial and statehouse contests in the rest of the nation.</p>